Igor Mantsov. Adventurers

Adventurers
Igor Mantsov

Publication date: April 26, 2004

Kind-hearted owners invariably try to marry a person who lives in someone else’s apartment. Once upon a time, one elderly relative recommended his neighbor’s daughter: “She’s a good girl. You know, just great.” They were celebrating someone's anniversary, which is why I was more accommodating than ever. We agreed to meet tomorrow.

To my surprise, after half an hour, for no apparent reason, the newly minted matchmaker changed his point of view. “To be honest,” he whispered confidentially in his ear, “I don’t advise you to do this . God save you!” That is, how is it? During a completely moderate feast, did the absent girl manage to compromise herself so much ?!

However, the next morning paradoxically began with such a life-affirming call: “What, guy, are you going to call Tanya? Good. Simply excellent. Write down the number, dial!” Meanwhile, the guy guessed that Tanka was no worse and no better than others. Tanka is Tanka as she is. Who are you with, Tanka? Be happy, Tanka! In short, the following happened: showing agility unusual for his age, the relative made a leap from the territory of everyday life into another existence. Why did he identify with the young and free me and, having realized himself psychologically in my social body, set off to meet the adventure . His swings from one extreme to another, his defiant inconsistency, his forgetful adventurism revealed cunning role-playing behavior, an unconscious, one-sided game. I was clearly used! In horror, he fled to his own hostel, where, in revenge for obsessive circumstances, he lived for two months with the first whore he came across. A whore, but at least her own! The choice is not the best, but it is free, not just anyone’s. It all ended in headaches and troubles, but I didn’t complain: a first-class adventure, as it should be!

Somewhere nearby, the classic of sociological science Z. was productively stomping around . To begin with, Z. noted that the phenomenon of adventure is a form that seems to be intended for erotic content, and, therefore, “adventures do not correspond to the lifestyle of old people . ” However, the point, according to Z., is not at all that these people are not capable of providing the meaningful side of the adventure, no. The content itself is secondary: overcoming danger, possessing a woman, amazing winning or losing - this and much more does not have to be an adventure. It becomes such only due to a certain intensity of the feeling of life: “If the special coloring, temperature and rhythm of the life process become truly decisive, sounding stronger than the content of this process, the event turns from a simple experience into an adventure. This principle of emphasis is not characteristic of old age.” .

And further: “Just as for a genuine player the decisive motive is not winning at all, but the game as such, the power of feelings passing from happiness to despair and back, as if the tangible proximity of demonic forces making their decision in favor of one or the other - so and the charm of adventure in countless cases is not the content, which, if it were offered in another form, would not attract our attention, but the adventurous form of its experience, the intensity and intensity with which it allows us to experience life in this particular case. brings together youth and adventure. What is called the subjectivity of youth is, in essence, only its relation to the material of life in its objective meaning, as something less important than the process underlying it, than life itself. "

The classic concludes the analysis with a furious verdict: “The old adventurer seems disgusting to us. It is not difficult to deduce the essence of adventure from the fact that this is a form not characteristic of old age . ” What is typical? Here: “contemplation” , “objective weighing” , “freedom from the worries of life in the present” . Now I'm rather middle-aged. I confirm: “worry” is becoming less and less attractive. I lazily hang out in front of the TV, weighing, contemplating.

From time to time I get hooked on Star Factory .

“Star Factory” is the most competent project on our TV, and this is understandable: a license, someone else’s. They themselves are not capable of anything tolerable. The most interesting thing in our “Factory” is not the notorious “creativity”, not the conflicts within the young, but the hidden, revealed only to an attentive viewer, relationship between the young “semi-finished products” and adults: guest stars, teachers, producers. It’s worth watching how adults connect to someone else’s life process and, like evil vampires, take away and suck out energy, transform before our eyes, and become younger!

“Star Factory” inadvertently simulated the socio-psychological situation in the country. All those who have failed, who have tipped the country into the abyss, but have not given up a single late-Soviet privilege, the “elders” teach, teach and teach the so-called younger ones. And, eating up the last crumbs from the post-Soviet table, blocking the social realization of children and grandchildren, they are starting an unscrupulous role-playing game. They appropriate the very idea of ​​adventure. They steal the “tension of life feeling” .

In the multi-faceted film "Brother-2", gave the elders a good shot Balabanov . Unfortunately, the notorious elders scolded the film for many other things, but not for this: they were so insensitive to the intergenerational problem that they did not notice the most offensive sarcasm addressed to them. Opponents of the film defended America, defended the results of privatization, big business and political correctness, everything that Danila and his comrades encroached on. Few people read the opening episode of the film.

Meanwhile, the episode is good. The older brother , a former policeman played by Sukhorukov , becomes an alcoholic in the outback of Raseysk. Junior , played by Bodrov , has grown up socially, turned into a TV star and now teases his simple-minded mother from the screen. A compassionate post-Soviet pensioner reproaches Sukhorukov: they say, look, while you drink shamelessly, your brother is showing off in the spotlight, realizing his best qualities. Hero!

What are the “best qualities” of a hero? The guy killed half of gangster St. Petersburg, and now he is implementing the same policy of targeted extermination in Moscow. If only a pensioner would ask at what cost social success was won! But no, this is not in her rules, not in her interests. Strange “elders”, corrupted beyond measure by the “scoop”, in the most terrible and politically incorrect place, readily close their eyes and plug their ears. I don’t see anything, I don’t hear anything, I won’t say anything to anyone!

Balabanov wittily organizes the entire subsequent period of the film as the implementation of the “testament of the fathers,” that is, the old mother. The brothers, united in a gang, secretly, far from television cameras, exterminate Russians, Chechens, and Americans. Essentially fulfilling the social order of the godmother , pensioner, God's dandelion. The adventures of the bandit sons were inspired by her, and she stole the color, temperature and rhythm of their life process!

Only by correctly identifying the main character can one correctly read the content of the film. Let's say the undisputed Danish masterpiece , "Reconstruction" by Christopher Boe and, as indicated in the credits, "the company." Here is the initial balance of power: a famous elderly writer with a beautiful wife, a brutal young man with his beloved, four in total. The writer is famous, but tired of life. A beautiful wife meets a young man on the street, and then spends a delightful night in bed with him.

The newly minted lovers hope to continue the adventure and plan to go to the Eternal City of Rome. However, the writer, who accidentally found out about the betrayal, demands to go home (and here he is on a business trip). Meanwhile, the young man finds a note from his beloved in his pocket: “I love you . ” Trying to find a girl, ask for forgiveness for cheating and say goodbye. But his beloved does not recognize him. Then the guy rushes to someone else’s wife, but now even this other man’s wife, yesterday’s mistress, doesn’t recognize him! In addition, it is unknown where his own apartment disappears: in place of the front door there is some kind of fire hatch, and the neighbor below sees him for the first time...

Once you identify the elderly writer as the main and only hero of the film, everything falls into place. "Christopher Boe and Company" construct the narrative as the realization of the writer's fantasy, as a film adaptation of his spontaneous plot constructions. “Reconstruction” is suitable as an exemplary illustration of the conclusions of the sociological classic Z. This film is not about male and female, as it might seem, but about the conflict of one age with another. Western culture, attentive to the human, in the person of the sociologist Z. or director B., knows well how productive, problematic, and insoluble this conflict is. long-standing Russian film In Khutsiev’s “Ilyich’s Outpost,” a dead Father appears to the young man. The living corpse and the young man talked and easily reached a consensus: incomparable soviet falsehood .

The playwright S. worked with the same material in a completely different way. The bloody horrors of his popular play “ Hamlet ” (by the way, another illustration for S.) are provoked by the demanding living corpse of the Father, who, like every living thing , longs to take part in the adventure (the quintessence of life!), but is not able to provide the corresponding intensity of life feeling. That is why, like the godmother from Balaban’s “Brother,” he demands from the young Danish prince revenge, blood, action and, most importantly, extreme internal tension! What did you think the notorious “Hamlet” was about?! The formula “the connection of times has broken down” denotes the impassable boundary between the psychological capabilities of old age and youth.

Exactly the same thing happens in a wonderful Danish film of our days, the elderly hero of which reconstructs this very “intensity of feeling ,” as if forcing “his younger self” to live and love to the limit . Up to loss of memory, common sense, spatial orientation. It seems like both characters are played by the same actress, which is great! A young man who does not distinguish between faces, irrationally exchanges a beautiful woman for exactly the same one, and “senselessly” suffers because of this, mercilessly profanes the very idea of ​​“content,” so dear to the heart of a sophisticated writer! That is why, despite all the efforts and professionalism of the latter, the plot of his story, and therefore the plot of the film as a whole, does not add up. "Reconstruction" ends the same way it began. The author's voice reminds us that it's all a fantasy, “just a movie” , that the hero is not real, a unit of the plot. The author's voice adds bitterly: “But it still hurts ” .

The notorious “pain”, a real experience, distinguishable before, after and in addition to the “content”, is the sufficient category that makes possible the psychological connection between the old hero, his young incarnation and the cynical viewer, located on this side of the screen in the company of popcorn, a bottle of beer and a specific friend.